


Instincts

by punkybunny



Series: Little Fangs [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Peter Parker Acts Like a Spider, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is a Mess, Precious Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, feral spider boy peter has entered the chat, he hiss, peter has fangs cuz why not, this is kinda dark im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:02:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25384999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkybunny/pseuds/punkybunny
Summary: "Peter hissed down at the man again and bared his fangs once more in a manner he hoped showed how dangerous he was. "Go," he whispered again, his voice cracking harshly.What he did not expect was to see the man's lips quirking upward. "Yes, you're very threatening. Will you come down now?""Or: Peter got his enhancements from Hydra agents and because he lived in darkness for so long, he hardly understands what it means to be human.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Little Fangs [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1838425
Comments: 22
Kudos: 810





	Instincts

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written this many stories for a fandom before??? Anyways I rly like fics where Peter is lowkey feral, and I got a lil carried away lol.  
> This story starts off pretty dark, my mental health was rly shitty when I wrote the beginning but then throughout writing this I started to feel a tad better :) Irondad does that to me. 
> 
> Warnings: referenced child abuse (not very graphic), nonconsensual drug use, violence towards a minor, neglect

Peter hardly remembered his parents. He was only four years old when they died. The few memories that somehow stubbornly stuck with him were the smell of his mother's lavender perfume, her bright smile that radiated resolve and kindness, and his father's warmth, like a faint glowing light. 

But that was it. And since he hardly remembered them, there wasn't much to miss. It seems all Peter did miss was the feeling of comfort. Of safety. 

That was because he hadn't felt that feeling since he was four years old. Not since his parents' plane crashed and then in the midst of grief that a child so small shouldn't have to experience, he was taken from Social Services and hidden somewhere dark. 

Peter has gotten used to living his life in black and white. Black is the clothing, the boots of the men who take him from his 'room', who hurt him. White is the four walls where the figures in (white) lab coats touch him, poke at him, talk about him, write about him on clipboards. Black is the small room they drag him back to as he bleeds and begs to understand what's happening. 

Eventually he stops begging. He grows tired and they're with him the whole time, the group of men and women who inject him with chemicals and watch as he screams. Watch as the lights behind his eyes dim and he learns that pain is to be expected. He doesn't ask them to stop anymore because they won't listen. He doesn't beg and plead anymore. 

But he can't control his instincts. His instincts that tell him to flinch, to yelp in pain, to run away. Sometimes he's surprised to find his instincts telling him to fight, but that never ends well. All that earns him is more beatings and no food for five days. He learns to never fight. 

Peter's instincts change, shift when the bad people have that spider bite him. At first, their experiments were injections, every couple months with a new strange, bright liquid. Afterward, the pain was always intense: sometimes he would yell for hours, sometimes his mind would cloud in anger or fear, and sometimes he would pass out in a sweat. It was impossible to tell what they wanted, what they expected him to do. Was there a point to all of the pain they put him through? 

It all changed when they brought the spider in. He could tell it had been experimented on too. It was brightly colored and twitching in pain inside of its glass jar. For the first time since he was four years old Peter truly didn't feel alone. He found a kindred spirit with that spider, even if he had only seen it for a second before the men dressed in black were holding his arm out. 

The bite hadn't hurt at first. Maybe the people in white were expecting that because they kept him there and stared for what felt like hours. And then the sweating started. He couldn't see straight, the figures around him flipping and turning. Or maybe he was turning? No, he could still feel the dark men holding him in place with their hands like steel. Black. White. Hurts. Spinning. Hurts so much. Where is he anyways? He never knew. Darkness.

Peter woke up in the small room he always woke up in. It was dark with no windows or lights. At one side of the room was a simple toilet. Against the other wall is a small bed fit for a child. (Because he was a child at one point. He never felt like one.) The world had stopped spinning and it felt easier to sit up. Less weight was on his shoulders. He had gotten so used to his blurry eyesight, that it was unsettling to see clearly. 

Peter had new instincts that guided his life from then on. Somehow he worked harder to survive. When the dark men entered his room to hurt him, he would crawl onto the walls and hiss in a futile attempt to scare them away. He would create webs (homes) from a substance he released out of his wrists. The corners of the ceiling always felt safest. He felt smaller and hidden, even if he wasn't because they could easily reach for him and snatch him up. Even when he wasn't in danger, sticking to surfaces felt comforting. He preferred up high. He preferred the dark. 

When Peter felt particularly threatened, he would reach out and bite them, his fangs holding on tight and releasing venom into their bloodstreams. The men would scream in pain, and for once, Peter felt hope. He could defend himself. He didn't have to take the pain. That thought was quickly extinguished when the people in white learned about his venom. They had more to test. Some of his venom was extracted, forced into his own blood to see how much he could take. That particular type of testing lasted for months.

Peter's hope was stolen again. They had made him a monster. A monster that was even a danger to himself. A monster that was consumed by his instincts, hardly human at all. Peter in some way wished he truly was a monster just like they wanted. Because he didn't want to be human if this is what humans were like. So he gave up trying to cling to humanity. He let himself let go of thoughts of a better life. A life with comfort, with safety. A life with colors other than black and white. 

Sometimes he would push back against them, hiss in their faces, but it was all reflexes. It was all just the spider talking. The human left inside of him hardly fought back anymore. 

\---

Peter strangely didn't feel any shivers wrack his frame as he huddled in his webbed corner, shrouded in darkness. They had turned down the temperature in his room, probably to test him again. 

The cold was much harsher than it had been before. It bit at his skin roughly and his breath stuttered with every intake. It felt as though he was going to freeze up, stop moving and eventually stop breathing. His gaze was fixed on the door, as it always was. He needed to keep watch at all times to be prepared. But what would he even do if he was prepared? 

He waited. He waited for what was probably hours but felt like days. Peter hardly grasped the concept of time, his knowledge based on what he's heard in passing and the ding of the hallway clock every hour. 

Peter started to feel darkness swarming his head, and suddenly he was warm and tired. He would go to sleep and wait until the cold was gone. Was the cold even still here? A numbing sensation was growing through his limbs, and he didn't really feel cold anymore but warm instead. It was a different type of warmth though, and Peter briefly wondered not for the first time if he was dying. 

He awoke from the darkness to find that he was hot, but not unbearably so. They must have turned the temperature up. Peering down at the entrance to his room, he saw a woman open the door to slip a plate of food onto the floor. Was it dinner time? Or was it the next day's dinner?

Peter didn't let the thoughts linger for too long, as he slowly, cautiously climbed on the walls and reached for the plate without touching the floor. Quickly, the boy retreated back to his spot on the ceiling and ate his food ravenously. When he finished, hardly a minute later, he returned the plate to its spot, knowing if he didn't he would be punished. He continued to avoid the floor. Peter's instincts screamed at him to stay up high, to stay safe. Nowadays he only went down when they dragged him down. 

Peter dozed for the next hour, sleep still clouding his mind. His stomach rumbled as it struggled to digest the food he ate much too quickly. 

Peter jolted as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. It was a familiar sensation, but never failed to scare him. Dangerdangerdanger. Something was going to happen. 

Suddenly there was a crash outside his room followed by loud yelling. The voices were too far away for him to make out the words, but at least he could hear the shouts with his enhanced senses. Peter scooted further into his corner, as far as he could go, raising his haunches. Normally the noises of the bad people talking was background noise to Peter, but today these voices were different. What he could hear seemed frantic and dangerous. There was gunfire. The familiar sound of blows being delivered. A fight. Was someone hurting the bad people? No one ever got hurt here, except Peter or the dark men when he bit them.

Loud footsteps got closer, as well as the shouting. There was another sound that Peter couldn't identify. A high-pitched mechanical whining? That was nearby as well. Peter kept his eyes intensely trained on the door. They were coming. Someone new was going to see him. Someone who wasn't the dark men or the people in white. It was terrifying. They would see a monster and continue the experiments because that's what people were like. Or would they kill him? Would they fear him? Probably. 

The sound of fighting, of gunshots died down slowly, but the footsteps continued, growing closer. 

"I'll check out this corridor," a man's voice called out. 

Metallic clanking filled the hallway and Peter felt his breathing speed up. Had the bad people just left him? Was he not a notable experiment that they needed to keep safe, if only to hurt him more? He had spent nearly his whole life here, but maybe it wasn't enough time for him to become the monster they wanted. He was expendable. 

The doors along the corridor were slammed open, and it occurred to Peter that he didn't even know what was in them. He knew his room and the room with the people in white. That was it. Whatever was in them must not have been important because the man didn't stop. He kept approaching. 

Finally the steps stopped outside of his room. The door knob was twisted but the door didn't budge. It was locked. Peter sucked in a breath and bared his fangs, ready for the intruder. In a flash of bright light, the door was blasted off its hinges. 

Peter blinked his eyes rapidly to adjust to the harsh light from the hallway, as he took in the sight of a metallic, red armored figure standing in his doorway. Peter let out a loud hiss at the stranger, his fangs on display, as he somehow pressed himself further into the ceiling corner.

Suddenly the emotionless, mechanical face of the armour slid back to reveal a man's face. Peter made a futile attempt to appear smaller but more imposing at the same time, his back arching and eyes wide. A range of emotions flitted across the man's face, but Peter didn't attempt to read them. Eventually the stranger settled on shock as he muttered out a, "What the…" and inched closer to Peter. 

The spider boy hissed again and reflexively shot out a web at the man. It was small and stuck to the front of the armor, harmless. The intruder glanced at it quizzically before continuing to advance on him. Peter scurried to the other corner, terror spiking through him. He breathed rapidly, his wide eyes never leaving the man. 

The stranger stopped walking at that and sighed. He held up his hands and Peter flinched, even though he wasn't even in arm's reach. A spark of guilt flashed in the man's eyes. He lowered his hands. "It's alright. Uh…" He seemed at a loss for words. "What… did they do to you?" 

Peter continued to stare at him intensely, hoping the man would just turn around and leave. Peter tried to remember what he had picked up from listening to the bad people talk. He tried to remember the verbal skills he had when he first arrived at four years old, his skills that were never built upon. Peter never found a reason to speak much anymore. "Go," he croaked out, his voice hoarse from disuse. He briefly wondered if he was too quiet for the other to hear. 

But the man obviously heard. He raised an eyebrow, before shaking his head firmly. "Nah, I don't think I will." He spoke again, but this time with his eyes trained on the wall. His words were obviously not for Peter. "Rhodes, there's a kid over here. He looks… enhanced? If you're done, I could use some assistance." 

Peter flinched roughly when he heard a tinny voice come from the red armor. "Shit. I'm on my way." 

Was there someone else here? Peter couldn't see anyone. The boy finally let his eyes leave the man in order to scan the area for anyone else. Who had he been talking to? There were more people and they would be coming. Peter hissed down at the man again and bared his fangs once more in a manner he hoped showed how dangerous he was. "Go," he whispered again, his voice cracking harshly. 

What he did not expect was to see the man's lips quirking upward. "Yes, you're very threatening. Will you come down now?" His voice was more genuine, less teasing when he added, "We took out the Hydra agents. Arrested some. They're taken care of now." 

Hydra? What was that? Peter tilted his head in a confused manner, his curls flopping. "Hy… Hy-" He coughed. "-dra?" 

The man looked surprised at that, but he quickly clarified, "The people who did this to you. They've enhanced individuals like you before." Peter let that sink in. He wasn't the first. They were a group of people that created monsters. At least, that's what they were to Peter. "Now, c'mon." He beckoned Peter to come closer. 

Peter considered for a second. He could tell this man was different from the bad people. From Hydra. But what if he wanted to learn more about Peter, to test him? Experiment on him? That's all anyone ever did to Peter. It's all he ever knew. 

But there was a look of honesty in the man's eyes. There was a spark of something that glimmered there. It was a 'something' that Peter hadn't ever seen before. He realised it must be good then because all Peter had ever seen in others' eyes was disgust or a sick curiosity. But this… was new. Peter wanted to believe in this man. Or try. 

The boy inched down the wall, his hands and feet sticking securely. A look of relief crossed over the man's eyes, but he stayed where he was a couple feet away from Peter. 

A voice drifted through the air, breaking the spell of Peter's bravery, the boy scurrying back up to his corner. "I think we got 'em all, Tony. What is-" The armor of gray stopped in the doorway when 'Tony' cut him off with a sharp "Shhh!"

Peter hissed loudly, his brown eyes darting between the two in fear. Now there were two. He was going to be surrounded. They were going to grab him. Hurt him. Please, no. He thought the bad people were gone. 

Tony cursed under his breath and whispered to the other man, "Rhodey, the kid's a little jumpy. Maybe we shouldn't surround him?" 

Rhodey glanced at Peter with sympathy in his eyes and nodded briefly. "Yeah, I'll wait outside. Sorry, Tones." And then he left. Peter kept his fanged on display, nerves still on edge. 

Tony took a step closer. And then he sat down, the noise when the armor hit the ground caused Peter to cringe. "Just me and you now. C'mon down." He patted the space next to him.

Peter quickly glanced at the door again to be sure they were alone. He slowly creeped down the wall, his heart beating rapidly in his ears. All his instincts were telling him to stay put, wait it out. But Peter wanted to leave this place and he wanted change. This strange man was bringing change into Peter's life. 

When he reached the floor, he looked up at the man hesitantly. He received an encouraging nod, which was all he needed to take the final step. Peter sat on the floor, hunched over a couple feet from Tony. Only then did he realise he had been full-on hyperventilating. 

Tony scooched closer. Peter didn't move. A hand was extended for Peter to take but he couldn't. He flinched and lunged forward, fangs glinting. "Woah there, dracula!" Tony pulled his red, metal hand back, and Peter found himself wondering why the man was covered in metal. Could he get out of it? Could Peter pierce it with his teeth? 

"I'm just trying to help you, kid, and what do I get? My hand chomped off? And not even a 'thank you'?" 

Peter just stared defensively, curling into himself. He found his gaze drifting to the door, the light in the hallway. He was less wary of Tony at this point. Of course, he still needed to be cautious. 

Tony must have seen what he was looking at because he asked, "You wanna leave this room? See what's outside? I don't know when the last time you left was, but, kid, there's a whole world outside of this building." 

Peter narrowed his eyes, examining the lines of sincerity on the man's face. It was hard to grasp. The concept of sincerity. Peter rasped out hesitantly, "Leave?" 

Tony smiled, standing up and stretching dramatically. "Yup. You wanna go see what's out there?" 

And Peter did. He desperately did. He couldn't fathom a world outside of experimentation. A world outside of black and white. But here was Tony: he was red and new and somehow Peter found himself hoping again. So he nodded and stood, his back aching from having been hunched over for so long, and quietly padded after Tony. 

It was scary and his instincts were screaming at him to run and hide and hiss, but Peter moved forward. It was a start.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is going to be part of a series of one-shots exploring how Peter opens up and starts to see himself as human again! I don't exactly know where I'm going with this but im excited :))
> 
> Thank u for reading!!
> 
> Edit: I don't rly know how to share images?? but here's a little drawing I made of Peter!  
> https://pin.it/1KXfW9d
> 
> <3


End file.
